The coalition deal was struck only last year following inconclusive parliamentary elections in 2017. The challengers are Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, who have been highly critical of the coalition and are part of the left wing of the party. The leadership race was triggered by the departure of the SPD’s previous leader, Andrea Nahles, after the party’s poor showing in European Parliament elections. Cut off from its “social roots,” the party seems “too rarely an alternative” to Merkel’s CDU, he said. “The SPD cannot renew itself unless it is in opposition and has new people,” fellow political expert Klaus Schroeder said.
